Learn About Lorem Ipsum: What Is This Mysterious Sample Text?

Lorem Ipsum is a placeholder text that has been used in the print and typesetting industry in place of actual text. The idea behind it was to eliminate distractions while working on page layouts and still having some form of text available to lay out the pages properly.

Although it was primarily used in graphic design, since the birth of the web Lorem Ipsum has found a home in web design as well, where designers often use it while mocking up client websites instead of actual content.

Brief History

For years, many printers claimed that Lorem Ipsum is just random text. However, research tells a different story. Lorem Ipsum originates from a very old piece of classical Latin literature written by Cicero. The work in question is titled de Finibus Bonorum et Malorum (The Extremes of Good and Evil). A couple of paragraphs from it were taken sometime in the 1500s by an unknown printer who scrambled them by adding and removing words to make a type specimen book.

This scrambled piece of text survived for more than 500 years and became popular in the 1960s with the release of Letraset sheets containing Lorem Ipsum passages. Nowadays, it’s also used in popular software such as Apple Pages, Microsoft Word, and various desktop publishing and design software such as Scribus and Photoshop.

Lorem Ipsum Generators

There is a wide variety of Lorem Ipsum generators available. They range from very basic ones with no ability to fine-tune the details of the generated text to those that allow you to specify the number of paragraphs or words and even decide whether you want to include lists, bold words, and more. There are also fun generators who combine the standard Lorem Ipsum text with words from English such as cupcakes and bacon.

DummyText: this is a free JavaScript program that you link to in your document. Then you have total control over providing dummy text to all aspects of your webpage: headers, paragraphs, list, etc. It even allows you to randomize content so that, for example, paragraphs and sentences vary in length.

Lorem Ipsum: the standard and the first true generator. You can choose the number of paragraphs, words, lists, and even the byte size of the generator text. Optionally, you can generate the copy starting with “Lorem Ipsum dolor sit amet…”

Blind Text Generator: using this generator, you can choose between different versions of filler text and the advanced options allow you to specify styles used with the copy such as font family, font size, letter spacing, line height, and more.

Loripsum.net: describing itself as “The ‘lorem ipsum’ generator that doesn’t suck,” this one allows you to include lists, blockquotes, numbers, code samples, and more to spice up you copy.

Cupcake Ipsum: a very popular generator that creates filler copy consisting of nothing but words of sweet treats.

Bacon Ipsum: bacon lovers will surely appreciate this meatier version of dummy text.

Picksum Ipsum: contains some of the best lines from Hollywood legends such as Clint Eastwood, Michael Caine, Jim Carrey, and Morgan Freeman.

Filerama: dummy text based on popular TV shows such as Futurama, Doctor Who, and Arrested Development. It has options to generate lists, headers, and inline styles without formatting, or formatted as markdown or HTML.

Riker Ipsum: Star Trek fans will enjoy this particular generator that uses quotes from The Next Generation to create dummy text for your project.

Samuel L Ipsum: if you’re feeling particularly bold, check out this site which contains Samuel L Jackson’s quotes from Pulp Fiction. You can add paragraph tags and headings as well.

Cat Ipsum: you can choose between a Lorem Ipsum version, just breeds, or standard scoops as well as generate a heading and sub copy. You can also submit your own version of Cat Ipsum.

Coffee Ipsum: generally considered the fuel of many designers and programmers alike, this dummy generator is sure to keep you going. You can choose the number and the size of the paragraphs.

Office Ipsum: lets you choose between dummy text containing the standard Lorem Ipsum, the usual phrases heard in every office meeting ever, or client feedback. You might want to avoid the client feedback version when working with clients though.

Corporate Ipsum: choose the number of paragraphs and this generator will produce the desired copy with words used in a corporate environment.

Meet the Ipsums: a fairly large collection of different Lorem Ipsum generators with sample text for each one of them.

Resources

The following resources include history and origins of Lorem Ipsum as well as a small collection of plugins and extensions:

Pypsum: a program written in the Python programming language that interfaces with lipsum.com to generate Lorem Ipsum text.

Rails Lipsum: Rails helper that generates Lorem Ipsum for use with the Ruby programming language.

Making Filler Text Fun Since Cicero

Lorem Ipsum has long been the standard of the design industry, but that doesn’t mean it has to be boring. The generators and tools mentioned above will help you create whatever kind of placeholder copy is suitable for your design projects.

Further Reading and Resources

We have more guides, tutorials, and infographics related to creating and maintaining a website:

Secrets of a Killer Blog Post

Brenda is an active online publisher and experienced WordPress blogger. She has been building websites since 1997. In addition, she publishes science fiction and fantasy stories under the name Brenda Stokes Barron.

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